Return on PMO Investment

No longer can Programme/Project Management Offices (PMOs) be seen as an isolated seemingly administrative overhead. But how many companies know what actual value or actual return they are getting from their PMO investment? We believe very few yet the opportunity to drive significant value and Return on Investment (RoI) with early bottom line benefits is often missed. This is important when many organisations are struggling for survival with tight budgets, capped head-count and possibly shrinking markets and need to get value for money from their projects, programmes and portfolios.

This is the opening paragraph from a whitepaper entitled Getting Return on Investment (R0I) from your Programme or Project Management Office, from ProjectPlus. It is definitely worth a read, especially the PMO business case which includes a sample cost model which I know professionals working within the PMO field will be interested to see.

The whitepaper came through to me from Iain Fraser of ProjectPlus, someone I met for the first time at Project Challenge this year, and we had a great conversation about PMOs and of course I mentioned the PMOSIG and the things we were doing. Iain also had some information for me on some training courses for project support professionals too. Naturally Im interested in this because apart from the PPSO Foundation and Advanced from ISEB and the more recent P3O Foundation and Practitioner, Im always on the look out for any courses that may benefit the PMO audience of the PMOSIG.

The Certificate in Project Administration and Certificate in Project Co-ordination both feel a little more practical than either of the PPSO or P3O ones. For example in the Project Co-ordination certification which is 8 days to be taken over a 12 month period if required (I love that flexibility!) includes 2 days of practical MS Project planning training; establishing a PMO, project leadership, project planning and control.The Project Administration one looks ideal for those new to the field 5 days to be completed over a 12 month period.

If youre interested in knowing more about the courses, contact us and well be happy to put you in touch

It just goes to show what can come of a little networking every now and again so if youre interested in meeting up with other professionals who share an interest in PMOs, come along to the next conference in March 2011.